Confidence Girl

Hillary Brooke and Tom Conway star in "Confidence Girl" from 1952. Partly done in a semidocumentary style, it tells the story of Mary Webb (Brooke) in the title role. Like my mother used to say, if these crooks put their intelligence toward doing something decent, they could rule the world.

Roger Kingsley (Conway) approaches an insurance company and tells them their department store is about to be ripped off by a confidence woman he's been trailing, one Mary Webb. He can catch her, but it will cost them $10,000; however, they'll get back their merchandise and get her off the streets. The insurance company agrees.

At the department store, an elderly woman, a confederate, looks at coats. While the coats she's looked at hang on a rack in front of her and the saleswoman has left to get another, Mary goes to the rack, takes a $15,000 coat (this is 1952 money), puts it on and leaves. And that's all I'll say.

There are a couple of more jobs, but there are plans for the big score -- Mary is to become a night club psychic so she can dazzle people and get private readings, during which she can encourage people to buy worthless stock that someone wants to unload.

Really entertaining B movie with good performances by a very dissipated looking Tom Conway and a glamorous Hillary Brooke. Well worth a look if you get the opportunity. These black and white B movies are often a nice way to spend a rainy afternoon.

"Confidence Girl" is a very frustrating film. The first half is clever and exciting. Yet, inexplicably, the entire pace and style of the film chances midway through--and the quality of the production sinks.

When the film begins, a special investigator, Roger Kingsley (Tom Conway), meets with the police about a confidence woman he's been pursuing, Mary Webb (Hillary Brooke). He even gets department store managers and police to help him in his hunt for the woman. The only problem is, she is Kingsley's partner! And, for much of the film, Webb swindles people right and left while in some cases Kingsley helps her and in others he misdirects the police. This is all very clever and exciting and it hooked me.

I have no idea why, but a bit later, instead of all these many scams, Kingsley devises a very, very, very elaborate mind-reading routine starring Webb. As I said, it's elaborate and it takes so much money and so many confederates that it's utterly ridiculous. The scheme works very well--and they wait to make a big score. However, when a murder occurs in town, the cocky Kingsley insists they should incorporate this into the act. As for Webb, she goes along for a while but when she realizes she MUST act or someone else will be killed, she goes to the police.

Aside from the second half being ridiculous and fitting poorly into the first part, the film hinges on a sociopathic woman suddenly caring enough to alert the police--saving someone's life but also dooming her to prison. If this woman steals and hurts people throughout the film, who in their right mind would believe that she suddenly is bothered by her conscience?! Overall, a movie that starts very well but takes an unexpected detour to Dumb-Dumb City! Not worth your time.

You know if a movie about confidence men aka con men (or in this case an ironic twist-titled CONFIDENCE GIRL) is being narrated/opened by an actual government agent, it won't particularly support their crooked schemes that would happen (from THE STING to DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS) decades later: when the cops are the heavies, the tricksters the anti-heroes and their victims rich dolts who should have never had so much money to begin with...

But with the casting of the always smooth and dashing Tom Conway, leading to a nifty first-act twist... instead of being one of the crowded room of detectives after Hillary Brooke's titular CONFIDENCE GIRL he's actually her partner... the title CONFIDENCE COUPLE would have fit better...

Or perhaps even CONFIDENCE NIGHTCLUB since the entire last half takes place where she works on stage, supposedly reading minds of seated customers while he learns about them from the floorboards above: a clever ruse given away much too quick for any kind of tension or suspense to build around what eventually turns into your basic morality tale: herein centering on the girl's budding guilt, and just how long her man plans on stretching it...

Either way, both Conway and Brooke make such a resilient couple, their schemes could have been worked into a series of programmers: but in classic film noir, crime simply doesn't pay, even for the more likeable/affable crooks.

It starts off as a typical police procedural with a brief introductory spiel by a Los Angeles police official warning against the confidence game, then proceeds to tell the case of Mary Webb (Brooke) and her association with Roger Kingsley (Conway).

This was one intricately plotted film that starts off with a nice twist following confidence girl Webb and her associates through various cons, culminating in an elaborate phony mentalist night club act.

Hillary Brooke looks great and does a convincing turn as Webb, Tom Conway (George Sander's brother) is her equal, believable. I've been familiar with Brooke from when I was a kid she was a regular, the blond bombshell that all the guys in Patterson on the Abbott & Costello TV show, were crazy about. Didn't realize she was a home girl (Astoria, NY) until I saw her bio. She shines.

Very similar to The Sting, but in my opinion even better for the 50s location sequences, check it out for yourselves. 8/10 Streaming on Netfix

Two slick con-artists plan to cap their success with a really big score by impersonating a psychic.

Actors Brooke and Conway together at last. In fact, shady sophistication doesn't come any better. Except here, Brooke's Mary is given a battered conscience, compromising her usual icy demeanor, while Conway's Kingsley manages his usual suave persona. The movie starts out really well with a couple of slick swindle operations by the two. Gypping the greedy pawnshop owner is both cleverly done and perversely satisfying. But then, when Mary goes into a stage act and private dick Kingsley hangs around the police station like a regular cop, the narrative becomes a real stretch. After all, that big swindle operation in the nightclub must involve fifty collaborators, any one of which could blow the whole fake mind-reading act. At the same time, would real cops let a shady PI go along with them on official business. Too bad, the con game springs a leak after such a clever start.

Impresario Stone appears unsure about how much documentary approach to use. After all, this was a time when Dragnet's semi-documentary style was lighting up TV sets. Nonetheless, the movie's very well mounted, using abundant location shots and persuasive interiors. And I really like Stone's boldness in using a nearly obese Kruschen as a cop at a time when movie cops looked anything but. All in all, however, it's a movie that shows early promise before believability begins to scatter.